Pissing Off the Fuhrer

I SPOTTED THIS ON WIKIPEDIA. THE IMAGE CAUGHT MY EYE. OPERATION CORNFLAKES was a WWII Office of Strategic Services PSYOP mission in 1944 and 1945 which involved tricking the German Postal Service into inadvertently delivering enemy propoganda to German citizens through the mail.

The operation involved special planes that were instructed to airdrop bags of false, but properly addressed, mail in the vicinity of air struck mail cars of trains. When recovering the mail, the postal service would hopefully confuse the false mail for the real thing and deliver it to the various addresses.

The content of the mail often included copies of Das Neue Deutschland, the Allie’s German language propaganda news sheet. In addition, the postage stamps used were subtly designed to resemble the standard stamp with Adolph Hitler’s face, but a close examination would reveal that his face is made to look like an exposed skull or similarly unflattering imagery. Also the country identifier “Deutsches Reich” (German Empire) read “Futsches Reich” (Collapsed Empire). The actual stamps are extremely rare, and expensive. The rarest of the rare. I found another great article about all of this here.

There are no clear indications on how successful the operation was, but I know this much. I would have liked to have worked in that department!